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Abstract

Nine Experimental Medical Care Review Organizations (EMCROs) were encouraged and funded by the National Center for Health Services Research in 1971. What was their mission, their purpose? The apparent answer was to prepare and demonstrate a rational method for evaluation of institutional medical care with attention to effective use of those institutions in maintaining or achieving an acceptable level of quality care within them. The nine EMCROs mounted parallel programs that combined health-services research and demonstrations based on available methodologies. All nine developed structurally similar criteria for evaluation of the medical diagnostic and therapeutic process. Each was properly concerned with